The devil’s in the details with transportation spending

Few in Austin disagree with the need to invest in Texas’ infrastructure, but as today’s story pointed out, the proposed methods vary. And all of them seem to have some opposition.

Tommy Williams

State Sen. Tommy Williams, for example, proposes using the gas tax for maintenance, stripping out the diversions to other programs and then raising the tag fees and diverting that money to new construction. This would give rural and urban communities the money for repairs because gas tax money is spread out by formulas to the various Texas Department of Transportation districts. And then registration is easy to track, so maybe the Houston area could keep most of the money generated here.

It’s important to note that the plan by Williams, R-The Woodlands, isn’t finalized, and lawmakers have a lot of hashing and horsetrading and haranguing to do before we see legislation.

But two concepts at the center of Williams’ proposal, no longer using gas tax money for law enforcement and other areas and raising the registration fee, are non-starters with some officials.

Allen Fletcher

“I think raising fees is another name for a tax,” state Rep. Allen Fletcher, R-Tomball, said Monday.

Fletcher also said he will continue to resist plans to strip law enforcement of its share of gas tax revenues.

So lawmakers across the state, with varied political viewpoints, have a lot of ground to cover to come to agreement.

“TxDOT needs a predictable funding stream to adequately plan for our infrastructure needs,” said Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, in an email. “It is difficult at this point to predict what will be agreeable or passable this session.”

2 Responses

Bottom line- the more fiscally-responsible idea than a refusal to ever raise taxes is to pay the bills in a predictable way.

No one LIKES to pay taxes, but we need to start funding education, highways, and health care in this state. We’re at a breaking point on paying the bills on the national and state level- trying to balance a budget SOLELY with budget cuts isn’t possibly anymore.

At some point you have to use taxes for their purpose. It’s an ugly word, but taxes have their purpose and sometimes you have to raise them when there is obviously no other option. These guys can’t just oppose it for the sake of opposing tax hikes. Eventually people are going to get tired of paying for tolls just to get around town in a barely more efficient manner. The money people spend on these tolls everyday is probably more expensive than an increased 2 or 3 cent gas tax hike. The toll thing was a good TEMPORARY fix to get a few needed roads built. It should not be the way of the future.